Department of Italian

Paper IT B1

Use of Italian

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Download the 2010 exam paper
Exam papers which have been set since 2010 can be downloaded from CamTools.

The Examination

The three-hour examination paper will consist of a variety of linguistic exercises, divided into three sections.

Section A

This section consists of two exercises. In the first, you will be given a passage in Italian (taken from one of the many sources used during the weekly classes) and will be required to show your comprehension and creative manipulation by writing, in Italian, a critical stylistic analysis of the language used in the passage, explaining the linguistic choices and features employed by the author which characterise the register(s) of the text.

The second exercise in Section A is a translation exercise. Specifically, you will be asked to translate a passage of around 150-200 words into Italian, maintaining the meaning, style and register of the original English version.

Section B

In this section, you will be given the opportunity to show your skills in a piece of free composition in Italian (c. 300 words) which will be assessed for its originality and imaginativeness as well as its accuracy. Specifically, you will be presented with an image (or a series of images) which you will be asked to interpret in your own words, employing one of a variety of suggested genres. You can be colloquial, slangy, literary or formal, and you can follow the conventions of song, poem, dialogue, prose, letter, speech, advert, sit-com, or soap opera, etc.

Section C

In this section, you will be presented with a number of exercises designed to test your knowledge of Italian grammar both through translation of a number of syntactically challenging sentences and traditional 'blank filling' exercises. Topics assessed in this part of the examination vary from year to year but typically involve such areas as subjunctive usage, choice of perfective auxiliary (avere vs essere), participial agreement, use of articles, formation of irregular verbs and nouns, linking prepositions before infinitives, etc.

Teaching

There will be one weekly class for this paper that will form the core of your Part I language course. Attendance is obligatory. Your teachers will encourage the active use of the language in reaction to both spoken and written Italian. In addition to extending your knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, special emphasis will be laid on the study of the different styles and registers you will encounter in Italy. As in English, so in Italian, a job application, a chat in a bar, or a scientific report, all call for quite different words and constructions, even pronunciations. Through a number of varied and challenging exercises, to be completed in class and in college, you will learn how to analyse and use the styles and registers characteristic of the language of young people, pop music, soap operas, advertising, various literary genres, politics, journalism - to name just a few - and you will learn to recognise some of the salient features of earlier Italian and different regional varieties of modern Italian.

For the overall structure of Part 1A of the post A-level Italian course, see this page.